With type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and America’s waistline bulging to frightening highs, what we think we know, and what we’ve been led to believe about fat loss, is not only wrong, but completely backward.
That’s right. Your difficulty losing weight is truly not your fault. You have been misinformed for years about healthy eating (i.e., fat makes you fat; replace fat with carbs). You have been misinformed about exercise’s role in reducing body fat. And, you have been bombarded by celebrity messages claiming, “This worked for me, so it will work for you.”
At The Exercise Coach® we make it our policy not to cave in to popular fitness trends, but rather to go wherever the science of fat loss and exercise leads us. You can enjoy maximum fitness and fat loss results with just 20 to 40 minutes of exercise per week – and I will tell you how. First, continue with our secrets to help fat loss!
SECRET #2 THE MUSCULAR MINDSET
Most everyone believes we should exercise, but few understand what the paramount goal in exercise should be. Undeniably, unequivocally, no question about it — the emphatic answer is to build muscle. Increased muscle mass is the lead domino in a lineup of health and fitness markers. These include metabolism, strength, endurance, bone density, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. As muscles are conditioned, these other markers improve.
When it comes to fat loss, you need to have what we call The Muscular Mindset. The only way to maximize the loss of body fat is to make sure any weight you lose comes from fat – not muscle.
This is called discriminated weight loss. The only way to do this is to focus on strengthening exercises. In fact, the best results tend to be for those people who do proper strength training only. That’s right, no conventional cardio. Just my opinion? Nope.
Two renowned researchers combined their findings looking at the effects of diet alone, diet plus strength training, and diet plus aerobics and strength training. Look at the results. Westcott and Darden found that the most effective fat loss approach was to combine a specific kind of strength training with appropriate nutrition.
What’s more, they determined that anything beyond the minimum amount of exercise necessary to build muscle was counterproductive. In their studies, the strength training-only subjects lost almost twice as much fat as those who combined strength training with aerobics. So, what exactly is the secret to making strength training this effective? I’m glad you asked.
SECRET #3 THE HIGH-INTENSITY BREAKTHROUGH
OK. I’ll let you in on the secret. The form of strength training used in the Westcott/ Darden studies was a type of strength training known as HIT. That stands for high intensity training. Intensity is by far the most important variable to manipulate in an exercise program.
What is intensity? It can be defined simply as the degree of momentary effort utilized in an exercise. So, we could call the maximum amount of exertion you could call upon at a given moment, 100-percent intensity. Conversely, we could call sitting on the couch a zero on the intensity indicator. Walking would be closer to the couch than it would be to your maximum effort.
Now before I go on, let me emphasize that, when we talk about intensity, we are talking about your momentary abilities, not an Olympic athlete.
Most of our clients range from their late 30s to early 60s, and we work very successfully with younger athletes and men and women well into their 80s.
High intensity does not mean safety is compromised. In fact, the type of work we perform at The Exercise Coach® is better characterized as “Right-Intensity Training™.”
better characterized as “Right-Intensity Training™.” Coming next month, more on the right intensity. In the meantime, the choice is yours to make and at The Exercise Coach® we can help.
Make TODAY the day to start on that road to better health and fitness! Let our caring and knowledgeable Certified Coaches get you started. Call, text, or visit us online for your complimentary Initial Consultation and 2 FREE Sessions! (480) 716-6080 or visit the website exercisecoach.com\north-mesa.